According to FlightGlobal, Sikorsky has taken a stake in Eclipse, producer of the Eclipse 500, allowing production of that aircraft to resume.

What is Sikorsky's motivation here? Other than sailplanes (through Schweizer), they have not dabbled in fixed-wing aircraft since the Pan Am Clipper era. I figure:

1. Sikorsky may eventually acquire all of Eclipse and merge it with Schweizer.
2. Sikorsky intends to use Eclipse to develop small UAVs.
3. Sikorsky intends to cross-sell Eclipse aircraft and aircraft such as the S-97.

I think it just might be Sikorsky being opportunistic to get into a new and growing segment of the market. There are a lot of players fighting for the VLJ market, but Sikorsky has been getting the job done for years so undoubtedly will be a boost to Eclipse. For one thing, I would guess that the customer support infrastructure Sikorsky has dwarfs what Eclipse had on their own. If you are buying a plane, Cessna or Embraer probably have parts and people just about everywhere, but Eclipse may not and that is definitely a factor when aircraft shopping.

Schweizer was dumped long ago by Sikorsky K and L Soaring the grandson of the original Schweizer now holds the type certificate for all the Schweizer gliders. From what I understand mostly supporting 2-33's for the Canadian Air force. But are very helpful if you have a 1-26.

Frankly I see all these very light jets as worthless toys. They're slow, very limited in range, and expensive. You can get a much more capable turboprop that's just as fast for less. I just don't see what's in it for Sikorsky. That impending VLJ "boom" hype from a few years ago was very overblown.

Quoting sppl24 (Reply 3):Schweizer was dumped long ago by Sikorsky K and L Soaring the grandson of the original Schweizer now holds the type certificate for all the Schweizer gliders. From what I understand mostly supporting 2-33's for the Canadian Air force. But are very helpful if you have a 1-26.

Schweizer helos are still sold by Sikorsky, and are the basis for several new products.

When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not know whether to answer 'Present' or 'Not guilty.' T.Roosevelt

Quoting BMI727 (Reply 2):If you are buying a plane, Cessna or Embraer probably have parts and people just about everywhere

Actually, Embraer doesn't have that wide service coverage for bizjets that aren't airliner derivatives. That's one big advantage Cessna has in comparing the CJ4 with the Phenom 300 (which are otherwise very comparable aircraft).